02688cam a22002897 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002400070245008000094260006600174490004200240500002000282520114500302530006101447538007201508538003601580690013101616690010101747690007801848690013401926690014402060710004202204830007702246856003802323856003702361w15355NBER20190915042654.0190915s2009 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aFernández, Raquel.10aWomen's Rights and Developmenth[electronic resource] /cRaquel Fernández. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2009.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w15355 aSeptember 2009.3 aWhy has the expansion of women's economic and political rights coincided with economic development? This paper investigates this question, focusing on a key economic right for women: property rights. The basic hypothesis is that the process of development (i.e., capital accumulation and declining fertility) exacerbated the tension in men's conflicting interests as husbands versus fathers, ultimately resolving them in favor of the latter. As husbands, men stood to gain from their privileged position in a patriarchal world whereas, as fathers, they were hurt by a system that afforded few rights to their daughters. The model predicts that declining fertility would hasten reform of women's property rights whereas legal systems that were initially more favorable to women would delay them. The theoretical relationship between capital and the relative attractiveness of reform is non-monotonic but growth inevitably leads to reform. I explore the empirical validity of the theoretical predictions by using cross-state variation in the US in the timing of married women obtaining property and earning rights between 1850 and 1920. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aJ12 - Marriage • Marital Dissolution • Family Structure • Domestic Abuse2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aJ16 - Economics of Gender • Non-labor Discrimination2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aN31 - U.S. • Canada: Pre-19132Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aO15 - Human Resources • Human Development • Income Distribution • Migration2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aO16 - Financial Markets • Saving and Capital Investment • Corporate Finance and Governance2Journal of Economic Literature class.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w15355.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1535541uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w15355